This review first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 34, number 02 (2011). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

Award-winning British journalist Peter Hitchens masterfully narrates a lively and insightful account about how he “returned to religion” as a result of his journey through atheism (Part One), including how he came to address various arguments of atheism (Part Two), and how the “league of the militant godless” should be understood and countered (Part Three).

The book closes with a reflection on his infamous 2008 debate with his atheist brother, Christopher. The book opens with a vivid anecdote from the author’s life in 1967 when, in a dramatic act of rebellion against everything he had been raised to believe, the fifteen-year-old Peter Hitchens burned his Bible at his Cambridge boarding school. The entirety of Part One develops how such a rebellious spirit—“the carnival of adolescent petulance, ingratitude, cruelty, and insensitivity that was my Godless period” (p. 9)—was apropos given the zeitgeist of the time. The secularism in society during Hitchens’s “godless period” fueled his passion for atheism. It gave him and his generation permission to be a “braggart sinner” (21–26), whose greatest fear growing up was that they would conform to their parents’ lifestyle and values (28–30), including conformity to “the deadly chill of ancient chants and texts” (26–28) that was Anglicanism in the mid-twentieth century.

What changed for Hitchens? Initially, it was several harsh encounters with reality that challenged his then-Marxist revolutionary outlook while living in corrupt Soviet Moscow and reporting in a deteriorating Mogadishu in the early 1990s (chap. 6). But what was transformational was his encounter with Rogier van der Weyden’s fifteenth-century painting, The Last Judgment, where Hitchens “had a sudden, strong sense of religion being a thing of the present day, not imprisoned under thick layers of time,” including a recognition that “[he] had absolutely no doubt that [he] was among the damned, if there were any damned” (103). When he returned to Anglicanism as a “prodigal,” however, Hitchens discovered to his shock how his own generation had deconstructed that religious tradition in Britain (106–23), leaving a gaping cultural hole for aggressive atheism to fill in society.

According to Hitchens, Christopher and the aggressive atheists try to convince people of the evil of religion in general, and of Christianity in particular. How? First, by insisting that “conflicts found in the name of religion are necessarily conflicts about religion” (127). But that doesn’t follow, Hitchens rebuts, because “man is inclined to make war on man when he thinks it will gain him power or wealth or land” (127), regardless if he has religious reasons or motivations. Second, New Atheists insist that it “is possible to determine what is right and what is wrong without God” (chap. 10). But to be “effectively absolute,” Hitchens observes, “a moral code needs to be beyond human power to alter” (141). Otherwise, “if I pull down the pillars of the moral universe, I too will be crushed when the roof falls” (152). Third, it is argued that atheist states are “better” (read: more tolerant) than Christian states. But Hitchens contends that “atheism is a license for ruthlessness, and it appeals to the ruthless” (160). Indeed, the secularism of the New Atheism is a “totalitarian intolerance” (chaps. 13–14). With Hitchens’s experience as a guide, one can come to see how Christianity, not atheism, really is better for society (chaps. 6, 8, and 11).

In terms of apologetic value, The Rage against God is a uniquely beneficial autobiography. First, it reflects a “sociological imagination,” to borrow from C. Wright Mills’s phrase, concerning the fruitful interplay between biography, history, and society in Hitchens’s narrative. His journey is an excellent case study of how the sociological formation of theistic or anti-theistic beliefs is a relevant factor when it comes to how a worldview changes. Second, Hitchens astutely discerns how passion, instead of knowledge, often governs people’s lives. “It is my belief that passions as strong as [Christopher’s] are more likely to be countered by the unexpected force of poetry, which can ambush the human heart at any time” (12). But wouldn’t stronger arguments for God’s existence be the best means of countering anti-theistic passion? Not necessarily, if the initial goal is to loosen the grip of such passion. For, as with all atheists, Hitchens counsels that “Christopher is his own chief opponent. As long as he can convince himself, nobody else will persuade him” (12). Consequently, anti-theists’ “refusal to accept that others might be as intelligent as they, yet disagree, leads them into many snares” (12). One can see wisdom in these observations.

The Rage against God offers a rare opportunity to gain insights about how atheist souls are formed (or malformed) from the vantage point of a first-person perspective. Surely, such knowledge will stirringly empower any presentation of superior arguments for Christianity. —Joseph E. Gorra

Joseph E. Gorra is the manager of academic programs and research for Biola University’s Christian apologetics program.

]]>http://www.equip.org/article/from-rage-to-faith/feed/0Secularism’s Evangelistshttp://www.equip.org/article/secularisms-evangelists/
http://www.equip.org/article/secularisms-evangelists/#commentsWed, 30 Nov 2011 06:24:00 +0000http://simonwebdesign.com/cri/beta/book-reviews/secularisms-evangelists/This review first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume33, number03 (2010). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

Atheists can be the most religious people on earth. In Against All Gods, attorney and pioneer of the intelligent design movement, Philip E. Johnson, teams with Biola University philosophy professor John Mark Reynolds to supply eight essays assessing the impact of the devout doubters known as the New Atheists. It may seem paradoxical to refer to atheists as “religious.” Yet, as Johnson and Reynolds demonstrate, the New Atheists-represented by writers such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris-approach their debunking missions with an evangelistic zeal that mirrors that of the most strident spiritual zealots. The essays offer sound and thoughtful critiques of the New Atheism and its methods, but Johnson and Reynolds are also forward-looking in their approach, as they discuss ways in which Christians can take advantage of the New Atheism’s loud, impassioned voice to contribute their own reasoned, yet passionate, sentiments to the public square. Johnson’s first essay offers a brief history of the New Atheism, praising its proponents for asking the right questions even as they reply with the wrong answers. He makes the poignant observation that the New Atheism has put less aggressive atheists into a bind, who are aware that the majority of the American public is still in some sense religious (even if not necessarily Christian), and the New Atheists could easily foment a backlash that ultimately would take atheism further out of public favor. Johnson then offers a chapter profiling a recent case of aggressive New Atheist evangelism. In 2006, Harvard University psychology professor Steven Pinker published an atheist manifesto in the student newspaper, which led the university to change the focus of a planned class on “the relationship of faith to reason” (p. 27) to a more general emphasis on what it means to be human. Johnson notes how the New Atheists misunderstand the nature of faith, while also paradoxically having a faith of their own in naturalism. Johnson’s third essay then provides a summary and discussion of evidence for Earth’s unique status as a livable habitat in a generally lifeless cosmos, and offers observations on the New Atheism’s concern to discover evidence for life on other planets, thereby verifying, in their view, the supposition that the universe is able to produce life without assistance from a deity. Johnson’s next essay discusses Darwinism as a worldview. For the New Atheists, Johnson shows, Darwinian theory is so fundamental to revamping the world in their image that it becomes, in essence, a religion. They are well aware of the ideological power that can be found in a theory like Darwin’s that serves as a “metanarrative” with “the power to explain everything human” (57). Ironically, whereas in times past Christianity occupied the position of the most respected worldview in academic settings, and Darwinism rose to challenge it as being elite and authoritarian, Johnson notes that it is now Darwinism that occupies the position of a widely respected worldview, and its proponents, especially the New Atheists, have turned out to be no less elite and authoritarian than supposedly were their Christian predecessors. Johnson’s final essay profiles the work of Victor Stenger, who speaks for the New Atheism from his perspective as a physicist and serves as an example of the elite, authoritarian attitude the New Atheists embody. John Mark Reynolds takes up the pen for the final three essays. The first gently admonishes the New Atheists for their superficial treatment of the Bible, and offers recommendations for more nuanced readings of the Scriptures and other “old books.” In this respect, the New Atheists tend to be highly literalist in their approach, reading the Bible with little to no concern for defining social, cultural, and literary contexts. Reynolds’ second essay advocates Christianity as a solid basis for education and virtue, in contrast to skepticism, which inevitably smothers the motivation for discovery under a blanket of doubts. Finally, Reynolds writes of the comparative effects of Christianity and secularism on history, also refuting arguments by New Atheists that perversely attempt to lay the blame for the horrors of atheistic regimes like Stalin’s at the feet of the church. Although the New Atheists would deny that they are religious, Johnson and Reynolds make it clear that the New Atheists are thoroughly religious people. Books such as Dawkins’s The God Delusion are their scriptures; Darwinism is their creed; they look to the glory and beauty of the universe for comfort and sanctuary; and they are possessed of a zealous certainty such that Johnson rightly describes them as “fundamentalists” (19). Against All Gods serves as a timely reminder for Christians to take the New Atheist movement seriously.

-James Patrick Holding

James Patrick Holding is President of Tekton Apologetics Ministries and author of Shattering the Christ Myth.

]]>http://www.equip.org/article/secularisms-evangelists/feed/0A Tolerant Condescensionhttp://www.equip.org/article/a-tolerant-condescension/
http://www.equip.org/article/a-tolerant-condescension/#commentsThu, 23 Jun 2011 19:24:00 +0000http://simonwebdesign.com/cri/beta/book-reviews/a-tolerant-condescension/This review first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 32, number 6 (2009). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org

Former Catholic nun Karen Armstrong has emerged as a recognized, popular voice on behalf of contemporary, postmodern religious sentiments. Her book The Case for God is the latest of nearly two dozen books she has written on religious subjects, in which she primarily focuses on the great monotheistic faiths (Christianity, Judaism, and Islam).

Despite its title, The Case for God does not present a “case” for God in the sense that it discusses proofs for God’s existence. Rather, Armstrong offers a highly summarized chronological survey of ideas about God, with emphasis on Christian and Jewish thought. Many of the chapters consist of biographical snippets about prominent figures within these traditions, such as the apostle Paul, the philosopher Anselm (1033-1109), and Martin Luther (1483-1546). The book also highlights some prominent figures in Greek and Islamic thought.

Armstrong offers little that is original, primarily distilling the findings and assumptions of liberal religious and biblical scholarship for a popular audience. She takes for granted such positions as that the Pentateuch was not authored by Moses, but was rather composed by four independent authors (designated in modern times as J, E, D, and P) (p. 30f£.) who were generally inaccurate in their reports of history. She also takes for granted that the Gospels were written very late (83), and were not actually authored by the persons whose names are on them. There is no interaction with scholarship offering contrary viewpoints.

For the most part, The Case for God consists of stylized, yet simplified, narrative history and the reportage is generally fairminded. For example, in contrast to many popular treatments, which portray Galileo as a faultless victim of ecclesiastical tyranny and ignorance, he is admitted to have “also made mistakes” (183) and to have represented intolerance after his own fashion.

Factual matters are frequently vehicles through which Armstrong expresses three thematic concerns, and it is clear that she has selected her historical examples in the service of illustrating these concerns.

The Inaccessible Mystery. One such theme is summarized in the statement that it is “very difficult indeed to speak about God” (x). According to Armstrong, the application of reason and logic to religious experience is misguided, and has resulted in extremist understandings of religion, particularly fundamentalism on one hand, and the hostile expressions of the “new atheism” on the other. There is also no possibility of anyone having a “last word” (xvii) about God, because God is “infinite” and the ultimate truth God represents “lies beyond words and concepts” (320). Arguing over religious matters is “counterproductive and not conducive to enlightenment” (xvii).

Armstrong offers an illustrative anecdote in which Buddha refuses to answer questions about things like the existence of God, for he regarded the answers to such questions as “useless information” that did not “lead to peace and to the direct knowledge of Nirvana” (23). It is not hard to reach the conclusion that the reason why concepts such as Nirvana (in Eastern religions, the state of being free from suffering) are “inexplicable” is because there is nothing to explain. One may be rightly suspicious that the designation of ideas as “inexplicable” is a ruse designed to put off those who seek rational explanations. In essence, Armstrong does not resolve the rational aspect of religious belief with this tactic; rather, she declares it off-limits to further discussion.

Armstrong is also insensate to the innate contradiction in her claim that God “lies beyond words and concepts.” Aside from the fact that she is using words to tell us that God is beyond words, in order for Armstrong to say with any authority that one cannot have a “last word” about God, she must presume to have exhaustive knowledge about God. Put another way, unless Armstrong herself has the “last word” on God, she has no grounds to declare that anyone else’s “last word” is inauthentic-and this does not even account for the possibility of God offering self-revelations about His character and purpose.

As noted, Armstrong’s historical examples are selected carefully in order to illustrate her chosen themes. An example of this is found in her decision to highlight the early church writer Origen (94-96). Though a formidable apologist for the Christian faith in his lifetime (AD 185-254), Origen frequently resorted to interpreting Scripture as allegorical, in order to explain apparent discrepancies. Armstrong apparently chooses to feature Origen rather than other commentators of his era with literalist exegetical practices in order to illustrate that Scripture is best interpreted in a nonliteral fashion.

The Nonfactual Experience. A second theme of the book is that religious expression does not require any factual basis; rather, it is to be grounded in experience. This follows naturally from the first theme, in which Armstrong has already discarded rational analysis as a tool for understanding religion.

For Armstrong, religious expression is more about acting than about believing: “It is no use magisterially weighing up the teachings of a religion to judge their truth or falsehood before embarking on a religious way of life. You will discover the truth-or lack of it-only if you translate these doctrines into ritual or ethical action” (xiii). Religion is created to help us find value in our life (8) and religious experience has the purpose of being therapeutic, such that religious rituals “lift us momentarily beyond ourselves” (10). Correspondingly, Jesus’ demand that people place their faith in Him has nothing to do with believing in His divinity, but rather with following Jesus’ ethical demands to feed the hungry, aid the poor, and “live compassionate lives” (87).

In saying this, Armstrong places the ethical cart before the epistemic horse. Our faith is in vain if Christ has not actually risen from the dead (1 Cor. 15). The historical occurrence of the Resurrection and God’s other actions in history provide us with the necessary substantiation for our own moral reactions. Armstrong’s epistemology provides no rational basis for ethical behavior.

Armstrong also reads “experience” into unwarranted contexts. For example, when she describes the christological controversies of the third century, she claims that the discussion was raised by people because “it touched the heart of their Christian experience” (107). There is little to suggest that “Christian experience,” as opposed to scriptural interpretation, had anything to do with the controversy between those who held to the heretical doctrine of Arius (who believed that Jesus was not eternal, but created at some point in time) and those who held to the orthodox position championed by Athanasius.

It is not surprising to see Armstrong profess that the Trinity “reminded Christians not to think about God as a simple personality and that what we call ‘God’ was inaccessible to rational analysis. It was a meditative device to counter the idolatrous tendency of people like Arius” (115). The Trinity is hardly “inaccessible to rational analysis” as Armstrong claims, and there would be a number of expositors who would be quite surprised to hear this. Reducing the doctrine to a mere “meditative device” further implies that Trinitarianism was formulated in such a way as to distract people from considering whether the doctrine was rational.

A Tolerant Condescension. A third frequent theme of the book is that religious traditions are merely mythic expressions intended to aid people in expressing their spirituality. This theme also naturally follows from the first two. Armstrong is quite insistent that literal interpretations of certain religious texts are erroneous. She asserts that humanity has “lost the art of interpreting the old tales of gods walking the earth, dead men striding out of tombs, or seas parting miraculously” (xv). Our own literal interpretations, she says, “would have been very surprising to our ancestors” (xv) and texts like the New Testament were “not primarily concerned with factual accuracy” (83).

But how does Armstrong know this? How does she know that the book of Exodus, or the Gospel narratives, or even pagan creation narratives such as the Babylonian Enuma Elish, were not intended to be taken literally? Our primary clue to determine the intention of a document is genre, and in that respect, while we can recognize some biblical texts as nonhistorical in intention (e.g., Psalms and Proverbs), the texts that Armstrong alludes to here are not in this category: Exodus appears to be in the genre of historical narrative, while the Gospels-despite Armstrong’s claim that they are “not biographies in our sense” (83)-are quite definitely in the format of ancient biographies. The genre “package” of these texts indicates that they were generally meant to be taken as literal history. Armstrong’s claim that “our ancestors” would be surprised by such an understanding is not borne out by the evidence. For example, the Gospels, as ancient biographies, are very similar in structure to other ancient biographies such as the Agricola of Tacitus.

It appears that Armstrong’s attempt to reclassify the biblical documents is not based on any sort of serious genre study, but on a desire to place the biblical texts off-limits from historical scrutiny, in accordance with the first two themes that have already designated questions of historical fact irrelevant. It is also clearly intended to validate her contention that the Bible “gives us no single, orthodox message and demands constant reinterpretation” (28). Armstrong firmly resists the idea of a single, indisputable truth in religious matters, which she dismisses as the product of a “fundamentalist mind-set” that holds “the belief that there is only one way of interpreting reality” (308-9).

It must be admitted that Armstrong is equitable in her condemnations. She also decries the New Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, for making blanket statements about religious people being deranged (306) and for “believ[ing] that they alone are in possession of the truth” (303). Nevertheless, in reading Armstrong, one is struck by the implicit irony in her approach. On the one hand, Armstrong would undoubtedly see herself as a model of tolerance, willing to give all religious views “equal time” and equal credence. At the same time, it is clear that this equanimity is grounded in a view that all religious traditions are equal in the sense that they are all substantially wrong, merely artificial creations designed as coping mechanisms for an insecure human race. Armstrong’s veneer of tolerance is thus, ironically, a highly condescending approach in which she places herself in a transcendent position, trying to rescue the rest of us from the grasp of debilitating religious literalism-a classic example of when “tolerance is intolerant.”

There is little question that Karen Armstrong speaks with clarity and passion for the postmodern religious establishment. It is unfortunate that in so doing, she ends up having so little of substance to say.

—James Patrick Holding

James Patrick Holding is president of Tekton Apologetics Ministries and author of Trusting the New Testament (Xulon Press, 2009).